As a youngster, I would get home from School, get changed and go out to play with my pals.

Now I'm older, I get home from work, get changed and go out to play with my pals, but now I call it training.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

One week older - lots faster

I admit to being a little disappointed at taking nearly 69 minutes for the ten mile run last Sunday. Despite not trying very hard I hoped to still run inside 68 if I'm honest. The next day I had an easy hours jogging around the park and golf course with Scamp.

Having recently joined Keswick AC as a second claim member it was rather apt that I should end up training with some Keswick members on Tuesday. Not on the fell though. Bizarrely it was on the Sheepmount track where I trained with Russell and Pippa Madams. My first track session in months was a real shock to the system. I only did about 4500metres consisting of mainly 800 and 1200 efforts which I ran at about 5:30 pace. Running there and back as well as a one mile warmup was a decent mileage for the day though.

Next day I was back to some recovery jogging on the grass with Scamp, then Thursday and Friday were the same run both evenings - 5 mile Houghton loop. 30:46 and 30:51 were decent enough times although I would prefer to be knocking out these inside 30:30.

Undecided what to do today (Saturday) I hung about the house all morning and watched the GP qualifying. After walking off my breakfast with Scamp I finally got up the motivation to go for a run. It was a lovely sunny day with temps in the teens centigrade. Vest weather.

I started my watch at the 13 mile route start point and decided if I felt rubbish to cut it short at the 10 turn.
I didn't put much effort into the early miles and expected to be running at about 6:45-6:55 pace. I only have vague checkpoints on this route but was pretty sure I was running much faster than anticipated. The second half was headwind today and also features the main hills, such as they are. I finished with 1:25:30 which is about 6:35 pace. Excellent result for a very routine run. Only the last three miles could be described as 'hard running' and if I was to do some marathon pace efforts on this route then I would be confident of my ability to run 15-20secs/mile faster than today.

1 comment:

3 Tempo sessions in the week, 2 of them together!You could be so much faster than you our!You could blow away even your best P.B's withhealthy Intelligent Training!!! http://hitsystem.com.au/2010/01/27/how-lydiard-would-approach-marathon-preparation/

Years ago the only plan was to run as fast as possible. Some half decent times were achieved and a few races were won. Then, somewhere in the mid to late noughties I lost my way a little. I now endeavour to recapture the fitness of my past, though I suspect will never have quite the same speed.However, it seems age also brings wisdom and a newfound self belief that anything is possible if you want it badly enough (and also train very hard).

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